Felipe Massa picked up in Spa from where he had left off in Spain two weekends ago as he comfortably paced the opening free practice session ahead of Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix.
The Brazilian waited a little while before vaulting to head of the times, but remained a fixture in P1 throughout the remainder of the 90-minute session, eventually posting a 1min 47.284secs effort that put him three tenths clear of the rest of the field in a dry session.
The Brazilian's closest opposition came from within the Ferrari enclave, as
Kimi Raikkonen attempted to banish the poor form that has dogged his recent outings. The Finn got to within 0.339secs of his team-mate as Ferrari started strongly, leaving title rivals
McLaren to fight over third and fourth.
That battle eventually went
Lewis Hamilton's way, the current points leader edging team-mate
Heikki Kovalainen by less than a tenth as the expected top four runners all endured trouble-free sessions. They were the only ones to break into the 1min 47s, although fifth-placed
Fernando Alonso came close to joining them, lapping in 1min 48.104secs.
The Spaniard, who has hinted that he will be chasing a podium this weekend, enjoyed a similarly comfortable gap over
Mark Webber and those behind him as Massa did over the field as a whole, but the
Red Bull driver will no doubt be happy to see two Renault-powered cars in the top ten after a disastrous weekend in Valencia that suggested the French marque had been left behind.
Ferrari, however, managed to get four of its six machines into the top half of the timesheet, as Toro Rosso duo
Sebastien Bourdais and
Sebastian Vettel again broke into the leading group, claiming seventh and eighth respectively.
